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Jones Honored for 85th Birthday

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HUNTINGDON (March 17) — W. Kent Jones arrived at work Friday thinking he had five appointments with clients on that day. Instead, those fictitious appointments were a decoy to assure Jones attended his own surprise birthday party.

Jones, 85, is a practicing attorney in Carroll County and has a staff of four assistants. He has limited his practice in recent years, but still enjoys serving his clients, many of which he has served their families for decades.

During come-and-go visits, people greeted Jones and shared stories with Jones and his staff.

Kent is a native of McKenzie, a graduate of Bethel College and Vanderbilt University and has been a licensed and renowned attorney for approximately 60 years. He has served as the city attorney for various cities, including his hometown for many years. He and Robert Keeton, Jr. are the longest serving and oldest attorneys in Carroll County. Keeton is one year older than Jones. Keeton is also very active in the legal profession with his family, Robert Keeton, III and Laura Keeton, both attorneys.

Enjoying the day as well were Jones’ law staff members Rhonda Pritchard, Kim McAdams, Amy Noles and Kathy Kelley.

Jones is known for his many years of great client service and wonderful courtroom demeanor and accomplishments. He is also recognized as one of the great all-time voices of West Tennessee athletics covering sports on the radio or as a public address announcer for seven decades.

During his induction in the Bethel University Sports Hall of Fame, Jones and his wife, Charlene, were honored in 2019.

During the celebration, the late Dale Kelley, Athletic Director at Bethel, announced, “At the age of 19, he started with WHDM doing tape replays of McKenzie High with his first game being in 1957. He had worked the board prior to that listening to Art Mooney call Tennessee games and was inspired to become a broadcaster in his own right.

He did three different stints with WKTA calling McKenzie High football and Bethel College basketball for a total of seven years. He then worked three years with WCMT and worked on the UTM network doing games all throughout the South. He worked at WVHR for 21 seasons serving as the voice of the Huntingdon Mustangs and broadcasting 270 games including four state championship appearances and the 2003 Mustang title.

The iconic and distinguished voice was already familiar to West Tennessee fans but even more so recently to Bethel Wildcat football fans as the P.A. voice of the football Wildcats for ten seasons.

His dedication to his family and his broadcasting can be summed in a weekend that took place in 2003. That Friday he had lunch with his son and family in Dallas, flew home to do the Huntingdon/ Milan playoff game and then flew back to Dallas to have breakfast to reunite with his family again. He said, “American Airlines was right on schedule.”

Kent is also a member of the Carroll County Sports Hall-of-Fame.